"Your body is the first thing any child of man ever wanted. Therefore dispose yourself to be loved, to be wanted, to be available. Be there for them with a vengeance. Be a gracious, bending woman. Incline your ear, your heart, your hands to them.... To be a Mother is to be the sacrament - the effective symbol - of place. Mothers do not make homes, they are our home." from Bed and Board, Robert Farrar Capon

Thursday, April 18, 2013

I tried this method the other day and it actually helped me get calmly through an episode involving three or four simultaneous "catastrophes" in my kitchen which could have easily sent me into an emotionally packed reactive outburst, but, this time it didn't.

It's from Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches, by Rachel Jankovic -

"In that early and intense phase with the twins, I developed the 20 minute rule. If things started seeming really out-of-control, I would look at the clock and note the time.

Then I would tell myself that in 20 minutes this would be over.

If I just kept my head down and did the work, 20 minutes was all I needed.

And actually, it was true. 20 minutes is enough time (if you are moving quickly and not moping)

to change three diapers and one complete outfit, spank one disobeyer, tuck two people into naps,

and sit down to nurse the other two. The storm would have passed in 20 minutes if I was

cheerfully getting things done. But that moment when you first discovered the blowout, and then

the two-year-old hit the one-year-old (who is now having a naptime meltdown with a dirty diaper), and both of the babies were mad because we were in the car when they decided it was lunchtime,

and now, thirty minutes later, you still haven't nursed them, but first you've got to change

the whole outfit and maybe can't find the clothes... well, that moment. What was it? A moment. It passes. But when it passes, you will be very

glad if all you did was work right through it. No self pity, no tears, no getting worked into a dither.

Look at the clock, look at the work you must do, and bear down. That super intensity will almost always be over in twenty minutes."

Thursday, April 4, 2013

My sister-in-law found *this article* and I like how it exposes the subtlety of one tactic Satan uses aiming to separate and destroy relationships within the church.

Here's an excerpt -

"This is how it works! Satan gets another Christian to sin against
us in deed or word.

It pleases Satan if a person with spiritual
significance or authority, such as a parent, pastor,

spouse or leader in
the Church sins against us. Their spiritual status, their office,
magnifies

their offense and intensifies the damage that it does.

This is
a kind of ritual abuse, the misuse of holy things against us.

After the offense has occurred, Satan gets us to brood over it,
like a stuck track or a video loop, repeatedly and obsessively in our
minds, with every greater emphasis on the gravity and

injustice of it.
As we process the offense and its effect on us, Satan gradually distorts
our remembrance and our assessment of it. He uses this offense to
encourage us to bring our mental accusations against the offender in the
court of our minds. There he presides over the proceedings as we hold a
secret trial in which we both prosecute and pass judgment on the
wrongdoer...."

Has anyone else out there had Satan try to get in their "back door" with this method?
Well I have, and it is every bit as damaging and corrosive as the article points out. Exposing these tactics of our Enemy makes them lose their power as we become aware of their source, their goal, and the damage they are causing. We are in a spiritual war, we mothers at home. Any evil thinking we allow in our own minds against any member of the body of Christ will be picked up by our children and will affect the state of the church, for we are all members of the church, one Body, present and future, and we always need to hear and speak words of conviction that help keep us clean, over and over.